Dallas (first series)
Dallas is a prime-time drama/soap opera, which aired from April 2, 1978-until May 3, 1991 on CBS. The series revolves around a wealthy and feuding Texan family, the Ewings, who own the independent oil company Ewing Oil and the cattle-ranching land of Southfork. The series originally focused on the marriage of Bobby Ewing and Pamela Barnes, whose families were sworn enemies. As the series progressed, oil tycoon J.R. Ewing grew to be the show's main character; his schemes and dirty business became the show's trademark. When the show ended in May 1991, J.R. was the only character to have appeared in every episode. The show was famous for its cliffhangers, including the Who shot J.R.? mystery. The 1980 episode Who Done It remains the second highest rated prime-time telecast ever.2 The show also featured a "Dream Season", in which the entirety of the ninth season was revealed to have been a dream of Pam Ewing. After 14 seasons, the series finale "Conundrum" aired in 1991. The show had a relatively ensemble cast. Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil tycoon J.R. Ewing, stage/screen actress Barbara Bel Geddes as family matriarch Miss Ellie and movie Western actor Jim Davis as Ewing patriarch Jock, his last role before his death in 1981. The series won four Emmy Awards, including a 1980 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series win for Bel Geddes. Characters The show focused primarily on J.R. Ewing, the ruthless tyrannical oil tycoon and son of Miss Ellie Ewing, and Jock Ewing, the patriarch of the family. His younger brother Bobby Ewing is also a prominent character, but he is portrayed as a much kinder, moralistic person. The Ewings, specifically J.R., are at odds with the Barnes family, due to an ancient feud between Jock Ewing and Digger Barnes. Digger's daughter (actually, she isn't his daughter, but he raised her), Pamela Barnes Ewing, marries Bobby, much to the dismay of J.R.. Digger Barnes' son, Cliff Barnes, who also has an affair with J.R.'s wife, Sue Ellen Ewing. The marriage between Sue Ellen and J.R. is constantly rocky, and both of them have many affairs. Another important character is Ray Krebbs, the illegitimate son of Jock Ewing. Ray Krebbs is a foreman on the ranch, and doesn't realize Jock is his father until later on in his career, which upsets Miss Ellie Ewing. Ray also had a brief fling with Lucy Ewing, the troublemaking teenage daughter of Jock Ewing's second son Gary Ewing. He marries Donna Culver Krebbs, and they have a child, Margaret Krebbs, named after his mother, and adopt a deaf boy, Tony Krebbs. He also eventually marries a woman named Jenna Wade in 1988, who is pregnant with his half-brother Bobby Ewing's child, Lucas. Original premise Dallas debuted on April 2, 1978, as a five-part miniseries on the CBS network. Producers initially had no plans for expansion; however, due to the show's popularity, it was subsequently turned into a regular series and broadcast for 13 full seasons, from September 23, 1978, to May 3, 1991. The first five episodes, originally considered a miniseries, are now referred to as season one—making fourteen seasons in total. The show is known for its portrayal of wealth, sex, intrigue, and power struggles. Throughout the series, the main premise is the longtime rivalry between the Ewings and the Barneses which came to head when the Barnes daughter, Pamela (Victoria Principal) eloped with a Ewing son, Bobby (Patrick Duffy) in the first episode. , home of the Ewing family]] The back story was that, in the 1930s, wildcatter John Ross "Jock" Ewing, Sr. (Jim Davis) had allegedly cheated his one-time partner, Willard "Digger" Barnes (David Wayne and later Keenan Wynn), out of his share of their company Ewing Oil, and married Digger's only love, Eleanor "Miss Ellie" Southworth (Barbara Bel Geddes). Ellie's family were—in contrast to Jock—ranchers, with great love for the land and the cattle. Following the marriage of Ellie and Jock, the Southworth family ranch, Southfork, became the Ewings' home, where Jock and Miss Ellie raised three sons: J. R. (Larry Hagman), Gary (Ted Shackelford) and Bobby. J.R., the eldest Ewing son, unscrupulous and unhappily married to a former Miss Texas, Sue Ellen Shepard (Linda Gray), was frequently at odds with his youngest brother, Bobby, who had the morals and integrity that J.R. lacked. Middle son Gary was Ellie's favorite as he displayed Southworth traits; however, Gary had been in conflict with both Jock and J.R. since childhood and was dismissed as a weak link. While still young, Gary had married waitress Valene Clements (guest star Joan Van Ark), who produced the first heir, the petite and saucy Lucy (Charlene Tilton). Years prior to the series beginning, J.R. had driven Gary and Valene off Southfork, leaving Lucy to be raised by her grandparents. During the first episodes of the series, the teenaged Lucy (Jock Ewing's granddaughter) is seen sleeping with ranch foreman Ray Krebbs (Steve Kanaly). Later, in season four, Ray would be revealed as Lucy's uncle, an illegitimate Ewing son through an extramarital affair that Jock Ewing had during World War II. Unhappy with his small, one-dimensional role, Kanaly had considered leaving the show; to add depth to the Ray character, Hagman suggested that the writers create a plot wherein Ray becomes half-brother to J.R., Gary, and Bobby, noting his resemblance to Davis. The episodes where Ray and his niece Lucy had a fling is, as Kanaly told Dinah Shore in an appearance on her show, "prayerfully forgotten, I hope". Ray had previously engaged in a short fling with Pamela Barnes, the daughter of Digger Barnes (although it was later revealed that Pam was not Digger's biological daughter). However, Pam fell deeply in love with Bobby, and the pilot episode begins with the two of them arriving at Southfork Ranch as newlyweds, shocking the entire family. J.R., who loathed the Barnes family, was not happy with Pam's living at Southfork, and constantly tried to undermine her marriage to Bobby. Meanwhile, Pam's brother Cliff (Ken Kercheval), who had inherited Digger's hatred towards the Ewings, shared J.R.'s objections to the marriage, and continued his father's quest to get revenge. Most of the seasons ended with ratings-grabbing cliffhangers, the most notable being the season three finale "A House Divided", which launched the landmark "Who shot J.R.?" storyline and was ranked #69 on TV Guide's list of "TV's Top 100 Episodes of All Time". Other season finale cliffhangers include the finding of an unidentified floating female corpse in the Southfork swimming pool (season four); a blazing house fire (season six); and Bobby's death (season eight) and subsequent return (season nine). Episodes Main article:' List of "Dallas" seasons & episodes (original series) Ratings Dallas originally aired on Saturday nights when it debuted as a regular series. Within a month, the show was moved to Sunday nights, where it would stay until halfway through the season, when it took a Friday-night slot. Dallas remained on Fridays until the show ended in 1991, alternating between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. airings. The "Who Done It" episode of Dallas that revealed who shot J. R.?, the famous 1980 cliffhanger, received the highest domestic ratings at that point with over 90 million American viewers (representing more than 53% of the U.S. households and 76% of the U.S. television audience for November 21, 1980) tuning in for the answer, initially surpassing the ratings record of the final episode of The Fugitive, broadcast in August 1967, but the record of Dallas would be broken only by the [[Goodbye, Farewell and Amen|last episode of M*A*S*H]] in 1983, falling into the second internationally most watched U.S. television episode, with nearly 360 million viewers in over 57 countries worldwide (by the year 1980) tuning in to see who shot J.R. Although the soap's audience had consistently declined since the "Who Done It" episode of 1980, the series finale of Dallas, Conundrum garnered 33 million viewers and a 22 household rating from 9-11pm on May 3, 1991, making its way into the country's 14th most watched television series finale. Its competition, Manhunter (on NBC), only drew a 9.8 rating. Films/Specials Date/Title/Network/Household rating/Share/Viewers *November 15, 1996: Dallas: J.R. Returns (1996) CBS 13.4 23 18.1 (9-11pm) (lead in: The Lion's Pride drew a 6.3 rating) *April 24, 1998: Dallas: War of the Ewings (1998) CBS 7.8 14 (lead in: Candid Camera drew a 6.8 rating) *November 7, 2004: Dallas Reunion: The Return to Southfork CBS 8.5 14 12.7 (9:30–11:30pm) Broadcast history CBS *April 2—30, 1978: Sundays, 10:00 PM (ET/PT)/9:00 PM (CT/MT) *September 23 – October 14, 1978: Saturdays, 10:00/9:00 PM *October 15, 1978 – January 14, 1979: Sundays, 10:00/9:00 PM *January 26, 1979 – November 27, 1981: Fridays, 10:00/9:00 PM *December 4, 1981 – March 16, 1990: Fridays, 9:00/8:00 PM *March 30 – December 21, 1990: Fridays, 10:00/9:00 PM *January 4 – May 3, 1991: Fridays, 9:00/8:00 PM Syndication Beginning in fall 1984, Dallas was packaged for off-network syndication by Lorimar to local stations; among the stations to purchase the program initially was the Dallas-Fort Worth KDAF Channel 33 which later became the FOX affiliate until 1994. Only the first 222 episodes (seasons 1 through 9) were part of the syndication package. However, Dallas did not achieve the same type of rating success in local markets as it did during its CBS primetime run. During the 1990s, the show aired briefly on TNT (from September 1992 to August 1993, again the first nine seasons only), followed by a run on TNN beginning in the fall of 1997 (the first network to air all 357 episodes of the original series, but the episodes were heavily edited for time), and from 2003 to 2008 the entire run aired on SoapNet. On January 1, 2011, CMT aired the show for one day, and prior to the premiere of the 2012 sequel, select episodes were shown on CMT and its website. Cliffhangers See: "Dallas" series cliffhangers Dallas is notable for its cliffhangers. Throughout the series' run, nearly every season ended with some sort of cliffhanging ending designed to drive ratings up for the season premiere later in the year. See also * Battle B-Daman References External links * Category:Dallas (old series) Category:Shows Category:Dallas